HOUSTON – In a candid conversation with Houston Life’s Melanie Camp at the Fondé Recreation Center, Sweet Lou Dunbar, a retired Harlem Globetrotter and current coach, reflected on his nearly five-decade journey with the iconic basketball team. Dunbar shared his experiences and insights into the Harlem Globetrotters’ rich history and cultural impact.
“This is my 48th year for this season with the world-famous Harlem Globetrotters,” Dunbar said. “Next year, it’ll be 49, and if I’m still around, 50 years would be amazing. It’s probably the only real job I’ve had in my adult life.”
Dunbar has fond memories of shooting hoops at Fondé, a place where he spent many hours on the court as a college player at the University of Houston and again as a free agent with the Houston Rockets.
At the start of his professional basketball career, the Philadelphia 76ers drafted Dunbar, but he chose to play in Europe, where he won the Swiss championship. Upon returning to the U.S., he signed with the Rockets and during a Summer Pro League in Los Angeles, the Harlem Globetrotters discovered him, marking the beginning of his storied career with the team.
Reflecting on what it takes to be a Harlem Globetrotter, Dunbar emphasized the importance of basketball skills. “We look for a great basketball player,” he said. “We can teach you how to spin the ball and pass behind your back, but you need to know how to play the game first. When you come to see the Harlem Globetrotters, you get great basketball and entertainment for the whole family.”
Almost 100 years ago, the team that would become the Harlem Globetrotters began as the Savoy Big Five. “Coming out of the South Side of Chicago, five guys and a little Jewish man named Abe Saperstein started this,” Dunbar said, adding that the team used to play in the Savoy Ballroom.
At the time, Black athletes had no opportunities to play professionally. “If it wasn’t for the Harlem Globetrotters, black athletes, basketball players had nowhere to go,” said Dunbar.
Saperstein soon changed the Savoy Big Five to include New York, wanting audiences in the mid-west to think they were watching a New York team. Then, after a premonition that lead him to believe the team could ultimately become a global phenomenon, Saperstein changed the team’s name again to the Harlem Globetrotters.
Dunbar said of all the celebrities he has met as a Harlem Globetrotter, his biggest privilege is to have played alongside some of the Globetrotters’ legends, including Meadowlark Lemon and Curly Neal. Recounting the stories of their experiences, Dunbar spoke of the challenges the original players faced in the segregated South.
“They couldn’t stay in hotels, you know. They had to stay with Black families. And then they used to play one game for White audiences and then go cross the track and play for the Black audience. You know, that’s how it was back in the day,” Dunbar said.
Playing ball in the face of challenges, the Harlem Globetrotters were significant players in breaking racial barriers. Dunbar shared an instance he had heard about where a segregated audience in the South removed the barrier separating Blacks from Whites so the crowd could sit, mixed, together - symbolizing a step towards unity.
For Dunbar, who had grown up in the South all too aware of the injustices of segregation, the power the Harlem Globetrotters wielded with a basketball was not lost. “I’m a Louisiana boy, so, you know, I know a little bit about that white only...” he said, remembering what it was to have to drink out of a designated water fountain warmed in the “blistering” Southern summer heat while White neighbors enjoyed a stream of cool water from the fountains labeled “Whites Only.”
The team’s influence extended beyond the United States. Dunbar recounted a remarkable story of how the Globetrotters’ presence in a South American city halted a civil war for three days, allowing them to play. Again, this is another instance of the team’s power to bring people together.
Dunbar emphasized the Harlem Globetrotters' enduring message of unity. “Nothing is impossible. We all can co-mingle together. That’s what it’s all about,” he said, underscoring the team’s legacy of promoting harmony through basketball.
See the Harlem Globetrotter stars LIVE on Feb. 8 (2p & 7p) at NRG Arena as they DRIBBLE, SPIN, SLAM, and DUNK their way past their rivals, the Washington Generals!
Tickets are available at www.harlemglobetrotters.com.